Lab Report

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Leah Baumgarten Paige Zlotolow Alex Vetterlien Kelly Bischoff
September 30, 2010
How Will You Survive Without Water?

1) Introduction
  • The goal for the water sample was to purify it and make it drinkable
  • The initial guess we had for what was in the water was oil, dirt, chemicals, and vinegar
  • The experiments we planned based on our hypothesis

2) Procedure/Data/Observations
Day 1
  1. Get a graduated Cylinder and filter paper
  2. Put filter paper in funnel.
  3. Put funnel into the graduated cylinder
  4. Pour dirty water into the funnel with filter paper
  5. Wait for no more dirty water to be in filter/funnel
Day 2
  1. Obtain 10 mL of sand
  2. Put sand in funnel with filter
  3. Pour liquid
  4. Wait for the water to filter through
Day 3
  1. Obtain 1 spoonful of charcol
  2. Pour water in funnel with filter
  3. Wait for water to filter through- should be clear
  4. If it is not completely clear (you can tell by holding up a piece of filter paper to the water, behind the grad cylinder- if you can completely see the white, its clear) if not, follow these steps:
    1. Obtain one spoonful of charcoal
    2. Put charcoal in filter paper in the funnel
    3. Repour the water into the funnel.
    4. It should now be completely clear
Day 4
  1. Distillation of Water

3) Calculations

DENSITY: mass of grad cylinder: 130.56 g
Mass with 22 ml of oil: 150.49 g
Total mass:19.93 g
Total volume: 22 mL

PURE WATER:
135.37: grad cylinder
with 21 mL water in it: 154.45
with20 mL: 154.18
with 18 mL: 152.19

TOTAL ML: 55
Total mass:


4) Analyze
  1. For our first step, the goal of just using filter paper was to remove the visible dirt and the oil from the water. To our knowledge, this was successful, as the oil was removed and caught in the filter and so was the dirt. There was no more of either remaining in the water mixture. The next step, which involved putting sand in the filter and then pouring the water into it, didn't work as we expected. We thought the sand would clear up the water a lot and hopefully get rid of the rancid smell, but it didn't; it only took away a little bit of the color. Our next step involved a filter and putting charcoal in it. We believed this would completely clear the water up. When the water was filtered out into the graduated cylinder, it wasn't perfectly clear. So, for our fourth step, we did exactly what we did in step three (poured charcoal into the filter and then poured the water into it), and the water was completely cleared up after this and didn't really smell.
  2. No, our introduction stated that our goal was to purify the water and make it drinkable. We assumed that the water also had oils, dirt, various chemicals, and vinegar. These were all of the things we tried to filter out from the water during the procedures. We didn't change any procedures because we were just experimenting with various materials ( charcoal, sand..etc) and were trying to find what was the best method at removing the excess materials from the water. I think it was the right thing to keep our procedures the same, because we based them off of logic and research and we ruled out what couldn't work, and what had a possibility to work.
  3. Just as we suspected the impurities we discovered in the water were oil, dirt, chemicals, vinegar, discoloration, and odor. The dirt and chemicals caused the water to change different colors turning it a yellowish brown. The oil and vinegar effected the odor of the water which we had to get rid of using charcoal.
  4. Depending on the substances in the water it may not be equally disbursed throughout the water meaning it could take a different about of funneling dirt out or using charcoal to take out the color and odor.

5) CONCLUSION:

  1. The level of success in the final result of purifying the water was high. Overall, the group did not go through too many failures. The group thought logically with separating the solids from the liquids. Then, came the testing of what supplies on the island to use for removing the odor and oil. Our first trial of that with the sand did not prove to be a complete success. The odor was removed slightly, but not good quality. So the group moved on to the charcoal and it proved to be successful with purifying the water as much as possible. So really, the group only went through two trials. Through the observation of the final product, it has been deemed a success with 100% pure water after going through the series of tubes and steam. By taking pictures after each step, especially, the last purification step in the machine, it can be seen that there is visible dirt being trapped in the side tube from what it appeared to be pure water at the time. Therefore, the water is now confidently clean.
  2. Any changes that the group would have made would have been to cut out the experiment, using the sand and the filter paper. This would have been eliminated because the sand only took out a tad bit of the color, and none of the odor, which we expected it to. The group does not think that the gravel would have done anything, so they do not think they should have performed something that they could of thought of sooner.
  3. In performing this activity, the experience as a group went well. In the beginning, we were not as sure as what to do, especially in finding out how many days we needed to survive with just the bottled water. Once we got into the lab to start our first experiment, we were still, a little clueless, but caught on with the experiments very quickly. After the first experiment, the next two experiments went rather quickly and was thought out very quickly. All in all, after the little bumps in the beginning, the group was able to make clean water in only 3 experiments.